Lee was loquacious, slurred words tumbling from his mouth so quickly they were tripping over each other on the way out, and I knew that he had been consuming much more than just alcohol.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The Givenchy announcement. Off to Paris to sign the contracts and then a press conference. Gonna be amazing!’ He put his arms around me and very nearly crushed me. ‘Hear things are going great for you up there, darling. You so deserve it, you guys, so deserve it.’
Ruairidh sipped on his beer and said, ‘Yeah, lots of orders coming in. Which is great. But we’re still a young company, Lee, no capital behind us and a real cashflow problem. It would seriously help us out if you could settle up for the cloth we supplied for the show.’
Like a fist beyond your peripheral vision that you never saw coming, Lee’s mood changed. ‘What the fuck? You want fucking money from me? You want money? You’re kidding me, right? I put your fucking cloth in the limelight, I make it world-famous. And you want me to pay for it?’ He stabbed a finger into Ruairidh’s chest. ‘Do you have any idea how much it costs to put on a runway show? Do you? Do you? No you fucking don’t. I have to beg, borrow and steal every fucking penny for it. Cos no other fucker’s going to pay.’ He waved his hand in the air, spittle gathering on his lips. ‘Not until I’m on the payroll at Givenchy. Every fucking farthing’s coming out of my own pocket.’
I tried to be reasonable. ‘Lee, come on. That order used up all our resources. Buying the yarn. Paying the weavers. Paying the mill.’
He turned on me. His face ugly now. ‘And you’re getting your reward for it now, bitch, aren’t you?’ I don’t know what he was thinking, but his hand came up to my neck, closing around it as if he intended to choke me. In fact there was no pressure in his fingers. They were caressing more than choking. But it was enough to send Ruairidh off the deep end. He lunged at Lee, pushing him back against the bar. Drink and glasses went flying. But for a man so clearly under the influence of alcohol and drugs, Lee’s reactions were swift and unexpected. A fist flew into Ruairidh’s face and sent him crashing backwards over a table. I could hear my own voice screaming above others raised in anger and protest.
Ruairidh was on his feet quickly, blood pouring from his nose, and he hurled himself at Lee. Both men staggered backwards until they fell together to the floor, Ruairidh on top, each trying to punch the other, but too close to land blows of any account.
Cornell tried to pull Ruairidh off and his hat went flying. The Evelyn Waugh boys shrank back into the crowd of drinkers which had gathered quickly around the fight.
I was screaming over and over, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’ It was like a playground scrap between two twelve-year-olds. As Lee got to his knees Ruairidh landed a blow full in his gut and vomit exploded from Lee’s mouth all over the floor.
Then loud male voices cut above the uproar. Two large uniformed policemen dragged the brawlers apart and hauled them both to their feet. A huge, shaven-headed barman slammed a baseball bat on to the counter top and bellowed, ‘You’re barred!’
Everything had happened so quickly, blown up from nowhere to flat-out warfare, that there had been no time for thinking. For considered, rational responses.
Now, after hours to dwell on events in a featureless interview room in Shoreditch police station, Ruairidh was still seething, but silent. At first I had wept, but the time for tears was long past. All I felt now was anger and regret.
It turned out that the police station in Shepherdess Walk was just a stone’s throw from the pub where we had been drinking, which is why police had arrived on the scene so quickly. We had been separated from Lee and the rest, and statements taken. After which we had been left to stew for what seemed an interminable length of time.
The light outside was starting to fade in the late afternoon when a shirtsleeved sergeant opened the door and nodded his head towards the exterior. ‘Okay, you two, hop it.’
I rose uncertainly. ‘You mean we can go?’
‘Yes, go. As in depart. Leave.’
‘But... what’s happening? Are we being charged?’
‘Nope.’ The big sergeant looked less than happy about it. ‘Mr Blunt has already made reparations to the landlord of the pub. No one’s pressing any charges. Though I’d like to throw you all in a cell somewhere for wasting our bloody time.’ He jerked his head again over his shoulder. ‘Go on, go!’ Money, it appeared, could fix almost anything.
Outside we walked down the steps straight into a crowd of reporters and photographers. Flashes popped in the gloom of the dying day. There was no sign of Lee or his friends. Only a clamour of voices punctuated by the flashing of the cameras.
‘What happened, mate?’
‘Who hit who?’
‘Where’s Blunt?’
‘What started the fight?’
I wanted just to go, to push past them without a word and find a taxi at the road end. But Ruairidh was still eaten up by his anger, face bruised and bloody. He was determined to have his say. ‘We’re just a young company from the Scottish islands,’ he said. ‘Ranish Tweed. Trying to make a living. We very nearly bankrupted ourselves supplying Lee Blunt with the cloth he wanted for his Clearances runway show. And now he won’t pay us for it. The man who’s going to be the next head designer at Givenchy!’
I drew breath involuntarily. This hadn’t even been announced yet. Pens scribbled in the dying light. But Ruairidh wasn’t finished.
‘A bloody millionaire. So tanked up on coke and vodka that when we ask him for our money, he attacks us. His hands round my wife’s throat.’
One of the reporters said, ‘When you say coke you mean cocaine?’
‘Yes. And God knows what else.’ Ruairidh snorted. ‘The bastard’s happy enough to pay for the damage done to the pub, but he still won’t pay us.’
The tabloids were full of it the next day. Front-page headlines. About the fight in the pub, Ruairidh’s rant outside the police station. One photograph of his bloodied face was captioned, Lee Blunt’s own version of the Highland Clearances. Even the broadsheets carried the story, and the consequences of it all followed swiftly. Givenchy, the day after, announced a young Italian designer as their new in-house head of design. No mention was made of Lee. And it was clear that the couture giant wanted nothing to do with the violent, drug-crazed British designer, as one lurid headline had labelled him.
It was the end of a short, sweet relationship, and Lee Blunt’s path and ours never crossed again.
Until now.
Chapter Ten
Niamh was looking at herself in the mirror, barely able to recognize the pale waif who stared back at her with bloodshot, shadowed eyes, when the knock came at the door. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and hanging in corkscrews around her face. It was not a face she wanted to present to the world, but the damage was done, and it would be a long time in repair.
She had no idea what to expect when she opened the door, heart hammering in a kind of dread anticipation. Lee stood there in the gloom of the hallway, and she was still surprised by how tall he was. He had put on weight. There was grey now in his hair, which to his credit he was not trying to hide. The suggestion of a goatee which had played around his jaw when they first met had developed into a full-grown beard, perhaps to disguise a burgeoning double chin. He was, for Lee, very conservatively dressed. A three-piece suit, white shirt, dark tie. Perhaps he had felt it more appropriate given the circumstances.